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Whosoever Shall do the Will of God, 
the Same is my Brother, and 
Sister, and Mother." 



ULYSSES G. B. PIERCE 



WASHINGTON D C 

ALL SOULS' CHURCH 

1906 



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"For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is 
my brother, and sister, and mother." Mark 3.35. 

I would like for a little while seriously to consider 
with you the spiritual genius of the religion of Jesus. 
I wish we might take it up with the same impartiality 
and the same devotion with which a scholar might turn 
to Plato and say, "I would like to find out the thing which 
has made the philosophy of Plato the great influence that 
it has been in all history of opinion." I wish we might 
turn to it with something of the freshness and devo- 
tion with which one might go to an old art gallery and 
say, "Here are masterpieces recognized the world over. 
I will sit before this to see if I can discover the genius 
of it." 

Now observe that that is a very different thing from 
discussing whether Plato's works ought to be bound in 
six volumes or in eight, or whether it is better for them 
to be in buckram or morocco. It is an entirely different 
thing from considering how large the picture is, and what 
has been its history. Those are all important questions. 
The bookbinder is naturally and justifiably more interested 
in the outside of Plato than in the inside. The historian 
is interested to know that Correggio's picture was once 
put up in a stable to keep the wind off the horses ; it is 
a very vital matter to him. No wonder that Correggio 
is valued! But the artist seeks for the genius behind 
these things, and says, "Is it possible for me to lay hold 
on the few things without which this influence never 



would have been?" We can not hope, of course, to do 
more than make a cursory examination, and yet the field 
is so rich that even to walk through it, and on a Sabbath 
day to pull some ears as we go, is not without its reward. 

I think, if we study the religion of Jesus — the religion 
of Jesus, not the theology of Jesus — if we give ourselves 
to meditation on the religion of Jesus, we shall find that 
we are face to face with a great reality. We shall feel 
as if it were a part of the world itself, so thoroughly 
natural is it. It seems to match with climate, with 
geology, with custom. It seems as if it were the very 
embodiment of naturalness. And as we try to examine 
it more closely, I think we shall discover that there are 
a few elements in the religion of Jesus which have made 
it not only the power that it is, but are working to-day 
to make it the power that it was intended to be; and 
we shall find that that power, that spiritual genius, lies 
not in the number of volumes it is bound in, lies not 
in the external measurements of the picture, but in the 
inner spiritual quality. And I think we are quite right, 
perhaps, in specifying for the first one what we may call 
abandon — simplicity — the absolute abandon of this man 
to the spirit of religion. I know the Chinese sage had 
said, "The great man is he who does not lose his child 
heart ;" but the founder of Christianity went further than 
that and said, "The good man is he who does not lose 
his child heart." The Chinese sage had used the child 
as an illustration by the way ; the "master of the science 
of right living" put the child in the midst — not on the 
outer rim, but in the midst — and bade the disciples move 
back and get ample perspective. 

"The kingdom of heaven," said he, "is like a child," 



Now what do we mean by that? We mean abandon. 
The child is ingenuous ; he does not weigh motives 
whether it were better to do this on the whole, or 
whether, perhaps, it were not just as well to do that. He 
does not calculate ; he knows too much to calculate. 
The child's genius is its absolute simplicity. 

Observe, again, the genius of the child is the genius 
for growth. The beauty of the child is that you never 
kiss the same baby twice. Every day brings some new 
development, some new word in its life vocabulary, some 
new smile, some new sorrow. The child is a child be- 
cause he is growing into manhood or womanhood. 

So Jesus takes this as the illustration of his idea of 
religion. "Except ye become converted — except ye move 
into the realm where argument, discussion, and disputa- 
tion are outgrown — except ye become as this little 
child — why, you can not even enter the kingdom of 
heaven," he says, "to say little about being greatest in 
the kingdom of heaven ; you can not even enter the 
kingdom of heaven." That is what he says to people 
who have been following him for years, people who 
thought they were authority on religious matters. He 
says, "You are all wrong. The true symbol of religion is; 
a happy, natural, growing child." 

Jesus turned that in every possible way. It was like 
a diamond, that you could fashion this way or that way.. 
It was literally the very core of his teaching. The childl 
is a child because it has a father; it realizes the rela- 
tionship of sonship, and the growth of the child is al- 
ways in the perception of the filial spirit. The writer 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews detected that when he said, 
"God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the 



prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath 
at the end of these days spoken unto us in a Son." That 
is, the fihal relationship is the perfect organ of com- 
munication in reHgious matters ; and the whole burden 
in the first place, of the teaching of the Master is to 
make men become like children in this perception of their 
reliance upon their Heavenly Father; of their worthi- 
ness to be cared for by him ; of their willingness to ask 
the boldest question, and their willingness to take the 
answer he gives. "To as many as received him gave 
he power to become sons of God." "The kingdom of 
heaven is like a little child." 

In the second place, we shall probably not err far if 
we assign as the second element of the spiritual genius 
of the religion of Jesus its modesty. Not often spoken 
of; but Jesus tried to urge it upon his disciples. Christ- 
ianity has not yet learned the lesson. "I am a door." 
"In my Father's house are many mansions." "I am a 
door." Could anything be more modest than that? He 
does not claim to be even one of those many mansions ; 
but simply says, "'I am a door. Now, if you can use 
me to get into a larger perception of life ; if you can use 
me to go through — my spirit to get into any one of 
those mansions in my Father's house — that is what I am 
here for." Hear him again. "I am a way." "A way." 
That does not mean a method of speculation ; it means 
a road. The Romans knew how to build roads. The 
Master says, "I am a road." "I am not the goal ; I am 
not the place from which the road starts ; I am the 
road ; I am the highway. Can you travel on this road ? 
If so, join hands with me, like comrades, and we will 
march on." Notice the absolute modesty of that. Do 



you wonder that a religion that had such a genius in 
it has undertaken to pervade the world? You would be 
a strange man if you did not believe that your mother 
was the best woman in the world ; but you know also 
that your neighbor has the same estimate of his mother. 
And both men are right! I believe that Christianity is 
the best religion in the world, but I know that the Hotten- 
tot thinks that his is the best, and the Brahmin thinks that 
his is the best ; and we come back to the spirit of modesty 
in religion — not casting pearls before swine, not blowing 
your trumpet in the marketplace and at the street corners, 
to be seen of men, but making yourself a door — making 
yourself a highway, and if your way of life is better than 
your neighbor's, he will need little persuasion to join you. 
So Jesus was fond of using parables that illustrate 
modesty in religion. "The kingdom of heaven is like 
leaven, which was hidden." How modest! "The king- 
dom of heaven is like a pearl of great price, which was 
lost." It was not put in an art gallery to be admired ; it was 
lost. But when people found out its true worth, then men 
one by one began to sell all they had to buy this one pearl. 
Sir Thomas Browne used to say that men are like ships — 
the more they have in them the lower they carry their 
prow. There is something like that in religion. The more 
genius it has, the more tenderly it touches the life nerve 
of religion, the more certainly it can do away with its 
superlatives, its exaggerated claims, and throw itself back 
with absolute abandon on the nature of things, and say, 
"No ; Christianity is a door. Can you go through it and 
get a view of some of the many mansions beyond? It is 
a highway ; we do not argue that it is the only one. The 
value of the road lies not in the road, but in the thing 



that is at the other end. That is the test. Not how wide 
is the road, how old it is, but where does it go to?" "I am 
a good shepherd," says the Master. You know what So- 
crates called himself. The Master takes a different fig- 
ure: 'T am a good shepherd. If any man will come with 
me, he shall find abundance, and he shall go in and go 
out, and feed." Observe that — "he shall go in and go 
out." That is, he shall be a free man; he is not tied up; 
he can feed on this side of the fence or that side, wherever 
he wishes to ; the only question being, when he comes 
back at night. Are you better nourished than when you 
left in the morning? The problem is not. Did you nibble 
grass on this side of the fence or on the other? but, 
Wheresoever you found it, were you able to make it into 
wool ? Modesty in religion. And if one stops to think 
of it for a moment, the so-called agnostic movement has 
been a redeeming grace to our century. It has called men 
back from spiritual pride, has driven them to their knees 
to make them realize the precepts of this gentle Naza- 
rene. "I am a way — a door — a shepherd" — the common- 
est kind of a workman ; a shepherd of men's souls. 

Or observe, in the third place, how the spiritual genius 
of the religion of Jesus touches the practical in men. 
Here it is entirely different from so many Oriental phases 
of thought. It is almost Anglo-Saxon in its brevity and 
its insistence upon practical life. Hear him: "Not every 
one that said. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven," Well, who then? The people who believe 
right things? The people who go to church? The peo- 
ple who are careful with whom they associate? There 
would have been no genius in an answer like that, "Not 
every one that saith. Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the zvill 

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of the Heavenly Father." "The will of my Heavenly 
Father." Who is to interpret that will to you? Am I? 
No. "Do you not judge of yourselves what is right?" In 
other words, a man is to be helped not by the mumbling 
of phrases, the conjuring of beliefs, but by the absolute 
devotion of his life to do the thing that seems to him to 
be right. A while ago a symposium was organized 
among leading men to ask what was the greatest saying 
of the Master. Not an easy thing to select from pearls 
that which is largest and smoothest, but the concensus 
was this: That the greatest utterance, the distinctive 
utterance of this man of Galilee was this : "If thou art 
bringing thy gift to the altar, and there remember that 
thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift, 
go thy way ; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then 
come and ofifer thy gift." Under those circumstances 
how many gifts would be brought to the altar on this 
Sunday morning or any Sunday morning? My hands 
are empty. No. Here is the genius of this man of re- 
ligion, who speaks as he sees first-hand. The genius of 
religion is not to bring gifts, but to realize that the gift 
of God is to perform your duty to your neighbor. "And 
the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch." 
Well, how about them before Antioch? Were they not 
Christians just the same? Probably; but they were not 
called so ; they were simply known as "men who loved 
their kind." It is little less than a stroke of spiritual ge- 
nius, the way that the Master makes this the criterion of 
religious life — the absolute test of religious life, as you 
would test a thing in the laboratory or weigh it on the 
scales. Is there no standard, we say, in religious mat- 
ters ? Yes ; he gives it. 



People came to one of the Rabbis in Jerusalem and 
said, "Can you give us a law of religion which is so short 
that we can repeat it while standing on one foot?" And 
he said, "Yes; love your neighbor as yourself." And they 
came to Confucius and said, "Can you epitomize religion 
in one word ?" "Yes ; reciprocity." Jesus goes further 
and different from that. He specifies a thing that makes 
absolutely the test between true religion and false. 
"Hereby" — here is the test — "hereby shall men know that 
ye are my disciples." Because you belong to the church? 
No. Because you keep the company of the good? No. 
Because you believe everything that has ever been told 
you? No. "Hereby shall all men know that ye are my 
disciples, that ye love one another." Now, that is the sim- 
plest thing in the world. It is what we were made for. 
We do not have to be great philosophers to love one an- 
other ; we do not have to know who wrote the Psalms 
or the fourth Gospel before we can love our neighbor. 
That, says he, is the test. Or he expands the test in an- 
other way — a sort of Twentieth Century direction, if 
you please: "Hereby shall all men know that ye are 
my disciples, that ye bear m'uch fruit." That is Twen- 
tieth Century; it is almost Anglo-Saxon. "Hereby 
shall men know that you are living the religious life, be- 
cause you bring things to pass. It is not all talk ; it is 
not all planning; but when your hand is put to a thing, 
things result. For no man putting his hand to the plow 
and turning back is fit for the kingdom of heaven." 

Does not that justify the claim that I made that the 
genius of the religion of Jesus is almost Anglo-Saxon in 
its insistance upon ethical, practical life? "Hereby shall 
all men know that ye are my disciples." Was there ever 

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a church council where that test was applied? As dele- 
gates gather, the question is, Where are your credentials ? 
"Here they are, signed by our minister or our Bishop ; 
that ought to be enough." It would not have passed cur- 
rent in Galilee. The only question that would have been 
asked, either of her who was brought into the synagogue 
by hypocrites, or of the man on the lake, would have 
been, Do you love your kind? Do you love your own 
species? If so, that is all ; other things will come. "Here- 
by shall all men know that ye are my disciples, in that ye 
love one another!" 



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